There has been much criticism this week of the dyslexic student at Plymouth’s Peninsula Medical School who’s sueing to have multiple choice exams removed from the curriculum in a teaching system which already allows extra support.
The BMA calls this learning disability ‘the gift of dyslexia’ and sees no reason why dyslexics should not qualify as doctors.
Speaking as a patient my view on dyslexic doctors is simple, clear and unequivocal – if it comes down a clash between the right of someone with a learning disability to follow their dream, and my right not to be killed as a result of their doing so, then I say sorry, choose another profession.
That is neither nice nor nasty, but simple self-preservation.
We are all different I have a degree of dyspraxia – I’m a bit clumsy – and synaesthesia, and I have depth perception problems. But my IQ (if you accept the validity of IQ in the first place) once tested in the top 3% of the nation.
I *choose* not to drive a car, although this causes me social problems and narrows my career choices, because I know I’d be a potential danger to the public. Similarly I decided not to be an engineer – not because I’m too thick, but because I have no aptitude for numbers. I might even be diagnosed as dysnumerate, were my middle class parents seeking to game the system in my favour. Certainly any railway, bridge or large building designed by me would be a danger to the public.
So too a person who has difficulty reading, writing and spelling (for whatever reason) has no aptitude to become a doctor and is a fool to think they do. A large component of the practice of medicine consists of clear and accurate observation, record keeping and prescription. There are minor spelling differences between hypo and hyper, for instance, yet the difference in meaning is vast and immediately life-threatening.
“0.1mg or 01mcg? Ooooh, not sure, let me squint a little…”
Doesn’t work, does it.
But the primary reason why this student is unqualified to be a doctor is not her dyslexia; it’s that she’s putting her own career ahead of her future patients’ interests. That’s not someone I’d want to treat me or anyone close to me.
If you’re bright enough to be interested in medicine as a career then you surely should also be bright enough to see the danger you might pose to a patient. How does the Hippocratic oath go? “First do no harm”? I can’t see how this student could take any such oath in good conscience. Or maybe she doesn’t have a good conscience; maybe she sees notions like ‘care for the patient first’ as boring old shibboleths which cannot be allowed to interfere with her own personal life choices.
This student and those supporting her are incredibly selfish – but then again, what can we expect from the flower of 3 generations of entitlement culture?
Just by way of hyperbolic illustration, here’s where making allowances gets you:
Doctor barred by state helps in U.S. executions
By Henry Weinstein
November 15, 2007 in print edition A-17Note This article includes corrections to the original version.
A doctor who was barred from taking part in executions in Missouri because of concerns his dyslexia would interfere with his ability to administer lethal injections is helping the federal government carry out death sentences in Indiana, according to court documents.
The physician has been the target of more than 20 malpractice suits, was barred from practicing at two hospitals and was publicly reprimanded by a state agency for failing to disclose those suits to a hospital where he treated patients, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The newspaper identified the doctor as Alan R. Doerhoff of Jefferson City, Mo.
Last year, U.S. District Judge Fernando J. Gaitan Jr. of Kansas City, Mo., banned Doerhoff from participating “in any manner, at any level” in lethal injections in Missouri.
The judge said earlier he was “gravely concerned” that the doctor responsible for “mixing the drugs which will be responsible for humanely ending the life of condemned inmates, has a condition [dyslexia] which causes him confusion with regard to numbers.”
Federal officials, however, have made Doerhoff part of the execution team at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Ind., according to court papers filed on behalf of several inmates there. All condemned federal prisoners are executed at that prison.
Among those executed there was Oklahoma City bomber Timothy J. McVeigh.
Ah well, if this student wins her case and goes on to qualify, I’m sure Jack Straw can find her a similar place at one of his Titan prisons.
